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Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Social anthropology'
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Bank, Leslie John. "Xhosa in town revisited : from urban anthropology to an anthropolgy of urbanism." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2002. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/3636.
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McGovern, Brian John. "The idea of applied social science : with special reference to social anthropology." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.304873.
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Gibson, Philip. "Learning, culture, curriculum and college : a social anthropology." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2002. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.272986.
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Mills, Hannah Marie. "Anthropology Museums and the Search for Social Relevancy." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/244479.
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This thesis examines the recent trend in the museum world of increasing the relevancy of museums exhibits toward the public. It focuses on Anthropology museums and their relationship with the history of the discipline of anthropology and its core theories. Through a literature review and case study examination, I identify key challenges that museums with anthropological content face in trying to increase their significance and impact. By addressing these challenges, this thesis also evaluates the strategies museums have used in the recent past for their relative success and effectiveness. Particular emphasis is placed on the Arizona State Museum's Through the Eyes of the Eagle as a case study, as I was personally involved in the exhibition's process and can therefore share deeper insights into the functioning of that exhibit.
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Allen, Rika. "The anthropology of art and the art of anthropology : a complex relationship." Thesis, Stellenbosch : University of Stellenbosch, 2008. http://hdl.handle.net/10019.1/2304.
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Thesis (MPhil (Sociology and Social Anthropology))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008.It has been said that anthropology operates in “liminal spaces” which can be defined as “spaces between disciplines”. This study will explore the space where the fields of art and anthropology meet in order to discover the epistemological and representational challenges that arise from this encounter. The common ground on which art and anthropology engage can be defined in terms of their observational and knowledge producing practices. Both art and anthropology rely on observational skills and varying forms of visual literacy to collect and represent data. Anthropologists represent their data mostly in written form by means of ethnographic accounts, and artists represent their findings by means of imaginative artistic mediums such as painting, sculpture, filmmaking and music. Following the so-called ‘ethnographic turn’, contemporary artists have adopted an ‘anthropological’ gaze, including methodologies, such as fieldwork, in their appropriation of other cultures. Anthropologists, on the other hand, in the wake of the ‘writing culture’ critique of the 1980s, are starting to explore new forms of visual research and representational practices that go beyond written texts.
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Mutaawe, Kasozi Ferdinand. "Self and social reality in a philosophical anthropology : inquiring into George Herbert Mead's socio-philosophical anthropology /." Frankfurt am Main ; Bern ; New York (N.Y.) : P. Lang, 1998. http://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb371984472.
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Dalakoglou, Dimitris. "An anthropology of the road." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 2009. http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/41398/.
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My ethnography begins providing its bibliographical, historical and geographic frameworks along the methodological issues in Chapter I. There, I outline the most explicit phenomena of postsocialism in Gjirokastër city, the introduction of private vehicles and private immobile property and their relationship with the radical transformations of the urban topography. This city today gradually centralises the road infrastructure, reflecting and facilitating the respective postsocialist social centralisation of spatial mobility and the increasing impact of the cross-border network on the social life of the city. The thesis continues in Chapter II with the history of motor-roads in Albania, with particular focus on the relationship between highways and modernisation during socialism and the paradox relationship between society and these infrastructures. During socialism Albanians had to build roads, but they were not able to use them, a process that paved in fact the way for the postsocialist social perceptions of roads and automobility. The main ethnographic and synchronic part begins in Chapter III and continues in Chapters IV and V where I study how the particular cross-border road network is perceived in postsocialist Gjirokastër, while I discuss its social agency after 1990. In Chapter III I focus on the contemporary road mythology in the city and I discuss it in reference other motifs of road mythology that are available in the bibliography. Chapters IV and V are the most important for the argument of the thesis as I emphasise the two most comprehensive road myths of the contemporary socio-cultural condition in Albania and I talk about their relationship with the actual materiality of that infrastructure in reference to the material dimensions of globalisation and transnationalism. In Chapter IV I present the politico-economic asymmetries of postsocialist capitalism in Albania as they are formed dialectically in the material and social constructions of Kakavije-Gjirokastër. In Chapter V, I continue with the dialectical scheme focusing on the social and material articulations of this transnationalism and fluidity from below, with focus on the ontological and material extension of the road: the houses built by migrants. There I show how the super-fluid and asymmetrical global relationships of the postsocialist transition are being familiarised and to a certain degree absorbed within the intimate material entity of the house, via the same road which incorporates and facilitates the international dependency of the society to the migratory process. The last chapter (VI) presents my conclusions emphasising the relationship between anthropology and roads, locating the current ethnography on the wider theoretical discussions on automobility infrastructures, space, time and scale.
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Shore, C. N. "Organization, ideology, identity : The social anthropology of Italian communism." Thesis, University of Sussex, 1985. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.373907.
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Baker, Joseph O., and Christopher D. Bader. "A Social Anthropology of Ghosts in Twenty-First-Century America." Digital Commons @ East Tennessee State University, 2014. https://dc.etsu.edu/etsu-works/490.
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Although belief in ghosts or analogous concepts is prevalent cross-culturally, including in contemporary Western cultures, social scientific treatments of spirit belief and experience often dismiss such views as superstitious, or overlook this dimension of culture completely. Using mixed methods, we examine ghost belief, experience, and media consumption, as well as the practice of ‘ghost hunting’ in the United States. Results from a national survey demonstrate that these beliefs and practices are common and concentrated strongly among younger generations of Americans, especially moderately religious ‘dabblers.’ Fieldwork with multiple groups centered on ‘hunting’ ghosts reveals several notable themes, including rhetorical appeals to both science and religion, magical rites, the extensive use of technology to mediate evidence and experiences of ghosts, and the narrative construction of hauntings. We argue that the inherent liminality of spirits as cultural constructs accounts for their persistence, power, and continual recurrence.
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Young, Malcolm. "An anthropology of the police : semantic constructs of social order." Thesis, Durham University, 1986. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/6790/.
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The police play an increasing role in the public construction of order and control. This thesis explores the modes of thought by which police practices are generated in pursuit of this control. A publicly proclaimed approval of social research is not supported by the analysis and academic enquiry is shown to be a binary opposite to a preferred ‘practical mastery'. This suggests the police maintain structural invisibility while appearing to be massively accessible to society. The 'insider/anthropologist' operates in a kind of extended liminality, with the potential to illuminate such hidden beliefs by a seditious interpretation. Reflexive participant observation therefore threatens and creates anti-structural possibilities for a society obsessed with conserving known and inculcated practice. This analysis of manufactured reality reveals a dramatic creation of ‘real’ and marginal policemen and villains, where the use of extreme metaphor, language and masculine symbols of status translate thought into action. Intrusion of women into this ideal world creates structural anomaly, for the world of ‘crime’ is dramatised to reinforce traditional belief in a masculine criminal justice system. An exploration of ambiguity caused by policewomen illustrates their incorrect place in the world of 'street-visible crime control’. Archetypes of feminine susceptibility are invoked, just as the archetype of 'hero‘ is attributed to the detective, 'fighting his war against crime’. However, analysis explodes the mythology surrounding the idea of 'crime', showing it to be an arbitrary police construct directed against the 'dangerous classes', manipulated and produced as a social drama. The revelation that this major structuring principle is used to preserve a known social etiquette is impossible to acknowledge and explains how research or academic enquiry into philosophies of power must be resisted. The police world has a public face, but a well-concealed private reality which this semantic exploration makes apparent.
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Rossi, Christine Skei. "After the sixties : anthropology in sixth grade social studies textbooks." PDXScholar, 1986. https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/open_access_etds/3691.
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During the 1960s, anthropology was an important part of the social studies curriculum. This study explores the question of whether twenty years later, anthropology is still an important part of primary and secondary school curricula and textbooks. To answer that question, the author used content analysis to analyze 13 sixth grade social studies textbooks for their anthropological content. Results of the research indicate that there is very little anthropology in the texts, the same topics and concepts are covered in most of them, and that most of the anthropological material is narrative or descriptive in form rather than theoretical. The exclusion of anthropology from the textbooks would seem to be tied in with the process of textbook production, publishing, and adoption. If anthropologists wish to see more anthropology in textbooks, then they will have to involve themselves in the textbook process.
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Welch, John Robert 1961. "The archaeological measures and social implications of agricultural commitment." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/290674.
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This is a case study of the causes and consequences of the shift from a forager-farmer adaptive strategy to village agriculture in the Southwest's mountainous Transition Zone. The earliest inventions and adoptions of agriculture have attracted a steady stream of archaeological research, but far less attention has been given to the subsequent change to dietary dependence on and organizational dedication to food production--agricultural commitment. Although there is little doubt that the Southwest's large villages and small towns were committed to successful farming, methodological and conceptual problems have impeded archaeological analyses of the ecological and evolutionary implications of this revolutionary shift in how people related to the world and to one another. The rapid and radical change that occurred in the Transition Zone's Grasshopper Region during the late AD 1200s and early 1300s provides a high resolution glimpse at the processes and products of agricultural commitment--notably increasing reliance on farming and the development of permanent towns and institutionalized systems for resource and conflict management. The model proposed for the Grasshopper Region involves population immigration and aggregation leading to increased agricultural reliance and related changes in settlement and subsistence ecology as well as social organization. Critical issues involve the ecological, social, and theoretical significance of these shifts, the methodological capacity to track dietary, settlement, and organizational change archaeologically, and the implications for understanding Western Pueblo social development in terms of seeing the Grasshopper occupation as an experiment in agriculturally-focused village life.
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Ewart, Ian James. "An anthropology of engineering." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2011. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:69c42210-e6c0-49c7-bec2-4a27f2e9903c.
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This dissertation considers the place in anthropology of ‘production’ generally, and ‘engineering’ specifically, by asking the simple question: How do people make things? Scholars of material culture have until recently focused on issues of consumption, especially the consumption of commodities (Miller), and considered production only in the abstract. Other theoretical approaches are therefore drawn upon to act as a framework for the thesis, including network theory (Law and Latour), and environmental relationism (Ingold). A methodology of ‘parallel fieldwork’ was developed (from Bourdieu), to situate myself as an experienced engineer carrying out anthropological fieldwork. Work in a ‘familiar’ environment (the Didcot Railway Centre, UK) was used to provoke thoughts about engineering in my primary fieldsite (the Kelabit highlands, Borneo). Data from the UK thus helped frame my analysis of Kelabit engineering, presented here in four parts. First, using the construction of two bridges as a case study, I suggest that a design can be seen as the revelation of a potential future, rather than a complete plan, as is suggested by design researchers such as Lawson and Norman. Then, by looking at changing traditions of house-building, I demonstrate the intimate relationship between materials and environment, even as the environment becomes more industrialised (Tsing), and consider this example in the light of debates about materiality (Miller; Ingold). Personal involvement in the conception and building of a new suspension bridge allowed me to investigate in some depth the act of construction. As a communal project, this incorporated aspects of individual skill, in the way that Ingold has described, but also the organization of people, tools and materials, akin to Law’s ‘heterogenous engineering’. This leads me to conclude that a theory of engineering might come from due consideration of both these approaches to relational thinking. Finally, I describe an abandoned longhouse and trace its deconstruction, suggesting that this is an example of creative destruction (Colloredo-Mansfeld), and re-materialization (Gregson). The dissipation of the material parts of the building shows that engineered objects should be seen as an ongoing process of material creation and disposal, and not a unified whole. In conclusion, my hope is that this dissertation contributes to ideas about the place and nature of material culture, and advocates a more prominent place for ‘production’ within anthropology.
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Whitelaw, Todd Matthew. "The social organisation of space in hunter-gatherer communities : some implications for social inference in archaeology." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1989. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/272725.
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MacKay, Donald Bruce. "Ethnicity and Israelite religion, the anthropology of social boundaries in judges." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk2/ftp02/NQ27686.pdf.
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Eldred, Susan A. "The social lives of UK fashion blogs." Thesis, University of St Andrews, 2013. http://hdl.handle.net/10023/4207.
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This thesis is the result of twenty-five months of ethnographic fieldwork, both online and offline, in the United Kingdom working with London-based fashion bloggers. It aims to examine the ways that bloggers negotiate between style and identity through the presentation of self in online environments, more specifically fashion blogs and corresponding social media websites, as well as offline spaces, including London Fashion Week, industry events, and regular social interactions with other bloggers and blog readers. It also address the relationships between bloggers and members of the fashion industry, as the industry struggles to define a place for them. Furthermore, this thesis hopes to contribute to growing debates regarding the potentiality of media anthropology to influence the creation and production of ethnographic texts.
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Graves, P. M. "The biological and the social in human evolution." Thesis, University of Southampton, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.256401.
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Juneau, Linda Matt. "Small Robe Band of Blackfeet: Ethnogenesis by Social and Religious Transformation." The University of Montana, 2007. http://etd.lib.umt.edu/theses/available/etd-05082007-144843/.
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One of the most significant challenges facing Native Americans and their indigenous identity is a greater understanding of the historical complexity of relationships that interconnected ethnically diverse populations across geographic landscapes. This thesis examines the range of Blackfoot political, social, economic structures, spiritual beliefs, and practices that were in place at the time of Euro-American contact. I use historically documented evidence of transformations that took place from the beginning of the fur trade era through the reservation era. Through the theoretical lens of ethnogenesis I use a case study of the Small Robe (Inucksiks) band of the South Piegan of Montana to elucidate their responses to conditions of change. I conclude that all divisions of the Blackfoot Confederacy changed in response to catastrophic conditions of disease, warfare, other natural phenomena. Inclusion of Indians and non-Indians from other cultures ensured the continuity and survival of the tribe.
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Lanman, Jonathan Andrew. "A secular mind : towards a cognitive anthropology of atheism." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:99ae030b-5f3a-4863-abf2-2f63eb8b4150.
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This thesis presents descriptive and explanatory accounts of both non-theism, the lack of belief in the existence of supernatural agents, and strong atheism, the moral opposition to such beliefs on the grounds that they are both harmful and signs of weak character. Based on my fieldwork with non-theist groups and individuals in the United States, United Kingdom, and Denmark, an online survey of over 3,000 non-theists from over 50 countries, and theories from both the social and cognitive sciences, I offer a new account of why nations with low economic and normative threats produce high levels of non-theism. This account is offered in place of the common explanation that religious beliefs provide comfort in threatening circumstances, which I show to be both anthropologically and psychologically problematic. My account centres on the role of threats, both existential and normative, in increasing commitment to ingroup ideologies, many of which are religious, and the important role of witnessing displays of commitment to religious beliefs in producing such beliefs in each new generation. In environments with low levels of personal and normative threat, commitment to religious ideologies decreases, extrinsic reasons for religious participation decrease, and superstitious actions decrease. Given the human tendency to believe the communications of others to the extent that they are backed up by action, such a decrease in displays of commitment to religious beliefs leads to increased non-theism in the span of a generation. In relation to strong atheism, I document a correlation, both geographical and chronological, between strong atheism and the presence of religious beliefs and demands in the public sphere. I then offer an explanation of this correlation based on the effects of threats against a modern normative order characterized by philosopher Charles Taylor as a system of mutual benefit and individual liberty.
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Iwabuchi, Akifumi. "The social organization of the Alas of Northern Sumatra." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1990. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.305759.
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Huggins, Gregory Bryan. "Social aspects of natural resource management in rural Kwazulu." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 1993. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/21612.
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Bibliography: pages 201-214.Environmental degradation is widely regarded as an integral part of South Africa's homeland areas. Conventional thinking often blames so-called traditional farming practices, attitudes and values for this situation. In other words, the blame is placed with the residents of the areas and environmental degradation is explained away as the result of a particular cultural make-up. Following this line of thought, education via agricultural extension is mooted as the primary solution to what is regarded as an inherent problem. The central concern of this dissertation is to examine the dynamics of natural resource management by residents of a rural area in KwaZulu known as oBivane. The thesis shows that the conditions leading to environmental degradation are best seen as the result of particular historical and political processes and not simply as the results of particular patterns of behaviour that are culturally driven. These processes, given primary impetus by massive population influx onto a restricted land base and combined with the peculiarities of differential access to resources and the need to preserve the interests of elite groups, have forced sectors of the South African population into situations where physical survival has necessarily had grave environmental cost. One of the consequences of apartheid policies has been to institutionalise environmental degradation in particular areas of the country.
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Galanek, Joseph D. "The Social and Cultural Context of Mental Illness in Prison." Case Western Reserve University School of Graduate Studies / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=case1319746577.
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Marais, Kylie. "Mothers matter: a critical exploration of motherhood and development through a video card intervention in a local clinic." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27919.
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New discourses of foetal and infant development, individual well-being and population futures, argue that mothers matter during the first thousand days of a baby's life, which commences from conception to the age of two. Women, particularly (black, working class) pregnant women and mothers, have consequently become the target of several international and local interventions related to maternal and child health (MCH) and early childhood development (ECD). The Together from the Beginning video card is one such intervention that emphasises the value of MCH and ECD, as supported by the latest scientific research, and that presents diverse childcare knowledge and practices to parents and caregivers. The video card intervention was piloted and evaluated over a two-month period in the waiting areas of the antenatal clinic and Midwife's Obstetrics Unit (MOU) at a Community Health Clinic (CHC) situated outside of Cape Town. A total of eighty participants, including sixty pregnant women, eight partners or fathers of their babies, ten nurses and two counsellors, were interviewed and observed during this time. Based on ethnographic research conducted in the clinic, this thesis argues that while mothers do matter in the physical development of babies, mothers are 'developmentally constructed' and thus 'made to matter' through MCH and ECD development discourses and interventions that reinforce and normalise dominant discourses of motherhood. More specifically, it will be shown how three different maternal figures – 'the waiting mother', 'the educated mother', and 'the ideal mother' – were produced, developed and 'made to matter' within public healthcare spaces for the sake of development, which in turn reframed and undermined the time, knowledge, and experiences of these women.
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Cook, Patricia Maria 1965. "Basal platform mounds at Chau Hiix, Belize: Evidence for ancient Maya social structure and cottage industry manufacturing." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282545.
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Traditional interpretations of ancient Maya social organization formulated more than half a century ago persist in current reconstructions. These proffer an ancient culture dichotomized into two distinct groups, elites and commoners, based on distinct social or economic characteristics. Recent research has shown that this theoretical dichotomy is unrealistic. A continuum in artifact assemblages and quantities, architectural sizes, styles and construction techniques, burial and cache contents, and other data sets indicate that interpretations identifying specific contexts as either elite or commoner are difficult to make. This has led some Mayanists to propose the existence of a middle class in ancient Maya society. This separate class is identifiable in the archaeological record by certain architectural units and limited access to restricted items. A multiple class reconstruction of ancient Maya culture more easily explains the diversity found in the archaeological record, and offers alternative models of Maya social, economic, and political systems. The Basal Platform Mound Project investigated a particular architectural type, the basal platform mound, that was hypothesized to represent the middle class. Excavations were undertaken at the site of Chau Hiix, in northern Belize, between 1993 and 1997. The four goals of the project were: (1) to identify and define a middle class within an ancient Maya community; (2) to determine the economic and social roles of this class within the ancient society at Chau Hiix during the Late Classic through Postclassic periods; (3) to determine the internal variability within this stratum as an indicator of the complexity of social systems among the ancient Maya; and (4) to determine if using the intersection of particular architectural styles and select artifact categories to identify social class is appropriate. This dissertation reports the results of the Basal Platform Mound Project, and offers a reconstruction of ancient Maya social, economic, and political trajectories that incorporates a middle class as a dynamic factor. A model is presented in which the middle class played a crucial role during the transition from the Late and Terminal Classic to the Postclassic periods, participating directly in the economic system as producers and perhaps as distributors. The flexibility and variability documented within this social group may be key to understanding the diverse developmental trajectories exhibited by different sites across the Maya Lowlands.
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Thorold, Alan Peter Hereward. "The Yao Muslims : religion and social change in southern Malawi." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 1995. https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/226813.
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The African Muslim minority in Malawi has been identified with one particular linguistic group, the Yao. The dissertation begins with the problem of their conversion and adherence to Islam in the face of seemingly adverse circumstances. In exploring-solutions to this problem the emergence of a Yao identity is outlined and the politics of conversion are described. The narrative then moves on to the transformations of the Yao Muslims in the hundred years since their conversion. A model of religious change is developed that attempts to account for both the dynamics of change and the contemporary situation of Islam in southern Malawi. The Yao Muslims are shown to be divided into three competing and sometimes hostile factions that are termed the Sufis, the sukuti or 'quietist' movement and the new reformists. The appearance of these movements and their interaction with one another is described in relation to the questions of identity and religious practice. The model proposes a three phase scheme of Islamic change (appropriation and accommodation followed by internal reform and then the new reformist movement) that is defined in part by the relationship of the Yao Muslims to writing and the Book. It is suggested that a certain logic of transformation is endogenous to Islam as a religion of the Book and that the scripturalist tendencies of the reformist movement give it an advantage over the followers of Sufi practices, especially in the context of modern systems of communication and education. The general approach is that of an historical anthropology, linking notions of structured change to anthropological concerns with ritual and practice. The analysis concludes by raising questions about the nature of religious change in the context of an increasingly volatile world system and the place of the anthropology of religion in the understanding of modernity.
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Lemelin, Raynald Harvey. "Social movements and the Great Law of Peace in Akwesasne." Thesis, National Library of Canada = Bibliothèque nationale du Canada, 1997. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/ftp05/mq20929.pdf.
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Dalby, Andrew. "Unequal feasts : food and its social context in early Greece." Thesis, Birkbeck (University of London), 1993. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.294280.
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Turner, David N. "The social organisation of off-course betting : an ethnographic perspective." Thesis, University of South Wales, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.265463.
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Turner, Simon J. W. "Learning in doing : the social anthropology of innovation in a large UK organisation." Thesis, Durham University, 2006. http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/2606/.
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In the face of increasingly dynamic market environments, firms are being urged to develop learning and innovation capabilities if they wish to secure competitive advantage and long-term growth. A bank of work written from numerous theoretical perspectives has converged on the view that knowledge underpins the formation of such capabilities. While much of this literature emphasises the importance of cognitive knowledge, a new approach grounded in techniques from social anthropology suggests that learning is a non-cognitive practice, drawing on embodied exploration, everyday sociality, and a communitarian infrastructure of human and non-human actants. This thesis aims to consolidate the current literature on 'possessed' knowledge by clarifying the relationship between cognition and learning, and to advance understanding of innovation practices within firms by examining the role of non-cognitive mechanisms in the development of organisational capabilities. Drawing on a nine-month period of ethnographic research, this thesis describes the on-the-ground processes of learning and innovation within the marketing department of a large UK organisation. This evidence is used to investigate critically the theoretical claims regarding the role of both cognitive and non-cognitive forms of knowledge. Based on the empirical findings, three interrelated arguments are proposed: the design and governance of strategic learning devices involve non-cognitive practices; informal mechanisms of learning underpin the formation of new capabilities; and communitarian theories of learning overemphasise the social construction of knowledge, while neglecting the agency of the materiality of context.
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Grindell, Beth 1948. "Unmasked equalities: An examination of mortuary practices and social complexity in the Levantine Natufian and Pre-pottery Neolithic." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1998. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282815.
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This study presents the results of an analysis of mortuary practices as reflected in 637 burials from 19 Natufian and Pre-pottery Neolithic sites in the southern Levant. The analysis focuses on selected dependent variables such as primary or secondary state, position, orientation, location, skull presence or absence, and grave goods presence or absence. It analyzes their frequency against such independent variables as age and sex of the deceased, period, and site. The analysis reveals that Natufian burial practices differed fundamentally from Prepottery Neolithic practices in that they reflect a much lower level of ritual involvement in disposing of the dead than is seen in the Pre-pottery Neolithic. The unstandardized burial practices and seemingly expedient nature of Natufian burials are found to be consistent with, but not exactly parallel to, the types of practices found in Woodburn's (1982a) "immediate return" societies and Douglas' (1970) "weak grid and group" societies. Increased standardization of burial practices in the Pre-pottery Neolithic, and greatly increased emphasis on skull removal and reburial, indicates a greater emphasis on ritual through which the body was a symbol of society. In the Middle and Late PPNB, mortuary practices emphasized an increasingly "group" oriented society with well defined social boundaries with respect to outside groups. Internal differentiation, however, was slight: some difference based on age is present but differentiation based on sex is not reflected in burial practices. Skull removal practices accelerated through the PPNA and Middle PPNB. Such practices represent ancestor cults that may have provided mechanisms of social negotiation over control of critical but restricted resources in an otherwise egalitarian society. With the advent of the PPNC, the ancestor cult symbolized by the skulls disappeared. This undoubtedly reflects the disappearance of the PPNB agricultural and herding way of life and the advent of a more pastorally based economy. In the face of new economic opportunities presented by such a shift, ancestors were less necessary in attempts to control local resources.
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Santos, Dominique. "All mixed up : music and inter-generational experiences of social change in South Africa." Thesis, Goldsmiths College (University of London), 2013. http://research.gold.ac.uk/6563/.
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In this thesis I use music as a starting point to animate the wider social experience of individuals and groups responding to rapid social change in South Africa. Social change in South Africa is linked in to discourses about identity that have been rigidly racialised over time. The cohorts and individuals who I engaged with cross, or are crossed by, the boundaries of racial categories in South Africa, either through family background or by the composition of cohort membership. The affective quality of music in people’s experience allows a more nuanced view of the changing dynamics of identity that is not accessed through other research methods. Music is used as a device to track biographies and stories about lived experiences of social change from the 1940’s to the first decade of the 21st Century in South Africa. Popular music cultures, including multi-racial church dances of the 1940’s, the 1970’s Johannesburg jazz and theatre scene and Kwaito, the electronic music that emerged in the 1990’s, provide a canvas to explore personal memories in very close connection to historical developments and groups of people ageing and working alongside each other in the inner western areas of Johannesburg, extending into other areas of the metropolis and the coastal city of Durban.The ethnography includes the life story of a member of a multi-racial family,the dynamic and biographies of a post-apartheid friendship cohort in Western Johannesburg, and an exploration of racial tension in a lap dancing club with a mixed clientele and staff base. The thesis draws on a period of 18 months of dedicated fieldwork in Johannesburg, where I was employed as a DJ in a number of night clubs, as well as many years living in the city as a South African national both as a child and an adult. The methodological implications of a close personal connection to the field site are thus also explored as a determinant of data gathering.
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Chapman, Malcolm Kenneth. "A social anthropological study of a Breton village, with Celtic comparisons." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1986. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.359673.
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Bagg, Janet. "Social relations in the Kentish Weald : a computer aided historical study." Thesis, University of Kent, 1989. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.305055.
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Hubbard, Jane Anne. "Children's play, songs and games in Derry : a social anthropological study." Thesis, Queen's University Belfast, 1995. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.282188.
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Miller, Andrew. "A Social Network Analysis of the Ye’kwana Horticulturalists of Lowland Venezuela." University of Cincinnati / OhioLINK, 2014. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1414750232.
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Grenda, Donn Robert 1966. "Site structure, settlement systems, and social organization at Lake Elsinore, California." Diss., The University of Arizona, 1997. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/282507.
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This report documents excavations at the Elsinore site (CA-RIV-2798/H) which is located at the mouth of the outlet channel on the northeast side of Lake Elsinore, Riverside County, California. Lake Elsinore is one of the only natural lakes in southern California, and is located at the eastern base of the Peninsular Range at the terminus of the San Jacinto River. Following the methodological approach of behavioral archaeology, this report explains how changes in lake level affected the lives of the people that lived on its shores. Identifying changes in site structure in relationship to the natural environment provides one of the keys to the interpretation of the lacustrine adaptations that took place over the past 8,000 years. One of the most important aspects of the site is that it holds cultural remains representing the entire prehistory of the region in a stratified context. A total of 138.45 m3 of fill was excavated from 27 units in deposits nearly three meters deep. Excavations revealed a large flaked stone assemblage including bifaces, unifaces, projectile points, flake tools, and 19 crescents; a variety of ground stone artifacts are present as well. Distributional covariation of artifact and ecofact classes serves as the basis for intrasite comparisons and the overall interpretation of the site. The interpretation addresses issues such as site function, activity areas, and the effect of differing lake levels on the inhabitants. The presence of a stable lake during a time of climatic instability was probably the main factor that drew people to its shores. Initially these people were organized as small bands that moved throughout the area as resources became available in different environmental zones. However, during the early to middle Holocene transition we see a change in settlement structure associated with a social organizational shift to a family based society. Although investigations revealed a late Holocene occupation at the site, the structure of the site at this time is fundamentally different from the earlier periods and failed to produce data necessary to allow for comparable discussion of social change during the late Holocene.
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Kaldahl, Eric James 1971. "Late Prehistoric technological and social reorganization along the Mogollon Rim, Arizona." Diss., The University of Arizona, 2000. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/284218.
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This study seeks to study the social processes of community reorganization through the changing technological organization of flaked stone tools. The Mogollon Rim region of east-central Arizona, between AD 1000 and AD 1400, was the scene of remarkable social changes. In this period, migrants were attracted into the region and new small communities were created. After a period of dispersed settlement pattern communities, some of the communities developed large, aggregated settlements. In this process of aggregation, community growth was facilitated by the incorporation of migrants. Social integrative forces at work included the development of interhousehold exchanges, as well as informal and formal suprahousehold organizations. In spite of these social integrative forces, community dissolution and abandonment sooner or later came to all of these settlements. The technology of daily life is one means of exploring these social organizational forces. Chipped stone studies have been behind the times in the American Southwest when addressing social organization research through the examination of Pueblo chipped stone assemblages. Technological organization is a creation of households and suprahousehold groups. Technological organization changes as community organization changes. This study examines the chipped stone tools and debitage from ten east-central Arizona pueblos, forming inferences about how the organization of chipped stone tool production, distribution, consumption, and discard was arranged in each community. Each community studied was a product of migrants and resident families, social exchanges, social integration, and social dissolution. This study demonstrates the utility of chipped stone analysis for studying the social processes at work in communities.
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Houser, Anne Marie. "Aesthetic Discrimination: The Impact of North American Ideologies of Beauty on the Social Exclusion of People with Skin Disorders, the Healing Power of Special Summer Youth camps, and a Shift to the Social in Biomedical Practice." Diss., Temple University Libraries, 2011. http://cdm16002.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p245801coll10/id/204052.
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AnthropologyPh.D.
This dissertation focuses on an understudied population of people with severe and chronic skin disorders concerning their lived realities in mainstream and specialized settings. Little is known about the life experiences of this population that, because of the rarity of these largely inherited disorders, is demographically scattered throughout North America. Through descriptive narratives from an individual perspective, the aim of this research is to educate others as to how people with severe and chronic skin disorders shape their identities, often as disabled, and experience daily life. Research participants include forty-four men and women, ranging in age from eighteen to seventy-plus years, who attended at least one of four week-long camp programs for children with severe and chronic skin disorders in the summer of 2009 at varied locations in the United States. Ethnographic research methods include participant-observation, face-to-face and telephone interviews to glean life narratives, and questionnaires for demographic and statistical analysis. Interview data are assigned to four categories: 1) Those with skin disorders who did not attend a childhood camp designed specifically for children with skin disorders, 2) those who did attend a skin disorders camp as a child and are now staff at such camps, 3) medical personnel who are camp staff, and 4) adult camp staff attendees who are not medical professionals nor any diagnoses of severe or chronic skin disorders. Through the ethnographic process themes evolved, including the effects of socially constructed markers of race, gender, age, and extent of disability, that further impact individuals' experiences of life in both the camp and mainstream settings. All persons with skin disorders interviewed report negative effects from stigmatization to a varying degree in mainstream society, while four report adverse experiences in the camp setting. All participants with skin disorders interviewed report that camp programs for children with skin disorders have positively impacted their lives in both mainstream and camp settings. Additionally, all medical personnel interviewed report positive, life-changing experiences and a new understanding of how people with skin disorders experience daily life. This dissertation also addresses the role that the social institution of biomedicine plays in the creation of camps for children with severe and chronic skin disorders, as well as how the relationships of biomedical practitioners and adults with skin disorders at camp change the perceptions of each other. Ultimately, it is the overt goal that this dissertation educates all readers with respect to how people with skin disorders are often labeled as being disabled and suffer consequences of stigmatization related to disability, as well as increase awareness of how mainstream society affects the identities of this particular population.
Temple University--Theses
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Klinghardt, Gerald Philip. "Missions and social identities in the Lower Orange River Basin, 1760-1998." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2005. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8654.
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Includes bibliographical references (leaves 214-224).The broad theoretical concern of the thesis is to examine an ambivalent dimension in the formation of social identities in which similarities in attributes and symbolic representations can become the source of conflict when they appear to have been appropriated and alienated. In studies of the role of ethnicity in the creation and reinforcement of social identity there is very often the assumption that social cohesion arises from similarity and that actual or perceived differences lead people to identify one another as members of opposing ethnic groups. I have suggested, however, that differentiation arises from the claims that are made to this distinctiveness, and that disputes over cultural commonalities or shared ethnic symbolism actually serve to sustain ethnic boundaries in situations where powerful external forces are at work in promoting integration. I have used Tambiah's theoretical model for the investigation of ethnic identity to structure a series of case studies drawn from a community study of Pella, a communal area with a Roman Catholic mission station, and studies of other former Coloured and Nama Reserves associated with Christian missions in the Lower Orange River Basin of Namaqualand. A distinctive historical feature of this region is a general trend towards social integration as opposed to the separation found in other parts of southern Africa. In the case studies that make up the body of the thesis I have presented the sociality of the community at Pella from three perspectives, socio- political, religious and material cultural, to show the complex ways in which ethnicity has operated over time in the formation of social identities. Setting the colonial and post-colonial encounters in Gramsci's notion of hegemony as involving asymmetrical class relations and cultural imperialism, I argue that the ongoing role of the universalist Christian churches in shaping patterns of identity has to be understood in terms of their commitment to what has come to be called "inculturation" as a way of indigenizing their versions of Christianity in Africa and throughout the world. In addressing the questions of coercion and resistance, hegemony and accommodation, localization and revitalization, and the role of missions in identity politics, I contend that the concept of "inculturation" is vital to an understanding of oppositional responses to globalization, as these are expressed in cultural and ethnic terms at local level through a politics of similarity as a form of everyday resistance to the coercive and hegemonic forces of globalization. The thesis is thus a contribution to a wider debate in anthropology on role of ethnicity in cultural transformation and continuity in the context of the gathering crisis of the nation-state and the ongoing revolutionary reconstruction of the contemporary world order.
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Edwards, Ian, and Ian Edwards. "The Social Life of Wild-Things: Negotiated Wildlife in Mali, West Africa." Thesis, University of Oregon, 2012. http://hdl.handle.net/1794/12540.
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Two markets located in Bamako, Mali, West Africa specialize in the commodification of wildlife, and in so doing contest western-centric notions of globalization. Founded in traditional medicine, the Marabagaw Yoro sells wildlife to serve the needs of the local community, while the Artisana, a state sponsored institution, manufactures fashion accoutrements from wildlife and is oriented towards meeting the demands of tourists. Actors in both markets effectively curb the impact of national and international forces and demonstrate the necessity of putting local-global relations at the heart of transnational studies. Malians are not weak and reactive, but potent and proactive. They become so by engaging in networks that move out from the two markets and that intersect to a degree. Through these networks, local actors negotiate and/or manipulate national and international forces for personal benefit for example, using wildlife for profit, despite national and international sanctions. As such, these markets are sites of articulation, where local resource users engage the world at large and actively negotiate a myriad of values as well as mediate political and economic pressures. Investigating these networks helps us understand the actual, empirical complexities of globalization while allowing for the agency of local actors.
Supplemental File: Wild Species of the APT and their Conservation Status
This file is an Excel spreadsheet of all wild species recorded in association with the Animal Parts Trade (APT) of Mali. It includes the following classes of vertebrates: Pisces, Aves, Reptilia, and Mammalia, as well as provides their conservation status and additional details.
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Crosswaite, Inka. "Travelling objects, masking commerce : the social life of African objects in Cape Town." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2004. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/3633.
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Crawford, Sally Elizabeth Ellen. "Age differentiation and related social status : a study of Anglo-Saxon childhood." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1991. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.315835.
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Pollock, Robert Fintan. "The influence of the Brukung cult on the social organization of Shiare." Thesis, University of Cambridge, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.484116.
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Gardella, Alexis Maria-Angela. "The process of social formation on the island of Rodrigues (Indian Ocean)." Thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science (University of London), 1998. http://etheses.lse.ac.uk/2001/.
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Rodrigues is a small island, 5,5 by 13 miles, lying 400 miles to the east of Mauritius in the western Indian Ocean. First settled in the early 19th century by French colonists and their Bast African, Malagasy and East Indian slaves, it was initially controlled by the French, then taken over by the British, finally becoming a dependency of Mauritius in the mid-twentieth century. Rodrigues' recent settlement, isolation and small-scale in conditions of relative autonomy from the metropolitan centers of control, allows a situation which requires a consideration of the very processes of social and cultural creation. Rodriguans view their society as socially and culturally divided into two groups, Montagnard and Creole. This division purportedly reflects the society's initial social configuration, with Creoles the descendants of the early European settlers, white and free, and with the Montagnards the descendants of black slaves. While this social separation is neither as straightforward nor as unambiguous as Rodriguans would have it, it does reflect what is fundamentally a difference in sociopolitical stance vis-a-vis both the metropole and each other. The thesis explores the social implications of these two sociopolitical stances through the description and analysis of the quotidian social organization of the two groups and an explication of their respective key ceremonial events. Both stances evidence a resistance to, and a differential reworking of, metropolitan modes of domination, equally economic, political, social and religious, and directed at the establishment of autonomous spheres of social action. This sociocultural marronage was in the past and is still intrinsic to the actual social structure of the society, beyond what is manifest in ceremonial occasions and in the rhetoric of political discourse. The process of social formation on the island of Rodrigues illustrates a particular people's expression of survival and resistance and the manner in which power - its perception and the attempts to control it - is integral to not only the most mundane aspects of society, but also to its very creation.
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Parkin, Tim G. "Age and the aged in Roman society : demographic, social and legal aspects." Thesis, University of Oxford, 1992. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.334229.
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Friesen, Joshua. "Tribes and revolution; the 'social factor' in Muammar Gadhafi's Libya and beyond." Thesis, McGill University, 2013. http://digitool.Library.McGill.CA:80/R/?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=119724.
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A revolt against Colonel Muammar Gadhafi's Libyan government began in February of 2011. The conflict lasted for eight months and affected the entire country. Two distinct sides fought for control during those eight months making the conflict a civil war. This master's thesis uses a series of interviews as well as the academic and journalistic literature produced about the Libyan conflict to argue that the war should also be understood as a revolution. Considering the war a revolution introduces a number of puzzles. Firstly, Colonel Gadhafi's position within Libya was officially symbolic in much the same way Great Britain's royalty is in Canada, yet Gadhafi was named as the revolution's primary enemy. Secondly, Libya was officially a popular democracy with no executive administrative branches. A revolution against a political elite was therefore theoretically impossible. Nonetheless, the Libyans I interviewed considered Gadhafi more than the purely symbolic leader of Libya, and felt that Libya was actually closer to a dictatorship than a popular democracy. This thesis investigates the discrepancies between official and unofficial realities in Libya by exploring the role of society in the history of Colonel Gadhafi's government. My analysis is focused by the question, "what role did tribes play in Libya's revolution?" I argue that tribes provided a system for conceptually organizing Libya's society during Colonel Gadhafi's tenure. This conceptual organization of Libya's society is both in evidence and contested by the revolution.Une révolte contre le gouvernement libyen du colonel Mouammar Kadhafi a commencé en Février 2011. Le conflit a duré huit mois et a affecté l'ensemble du pays. Deux parties distinctes se sont battus pour le contrôle pendant ces huit mois donc ce conflit peut-être considerer une guerre civile. Cette thèse utilise une série d'entrevues ainsi que la littérature académique et journalistique produite sur le conflit libyen de soutenir que la guerre doit aussi être comprise comme une révolution. Compte tenu de la guerre, une révolution introduit un certain nombre d'énigmes. Tout d'abord, la position du colonel Kadhafi en Libye a été officiellement symbolique en même façon que la royauté de la Grande-Bretagne est au Canada, mais Kadhafi a été pensé comme principal ennemi de la révolution. Deuxièmement, la Libye est officiellement une démocratie populaire sans branches administratives exécutives. Une révolution contre une élite politique était donc théoriquement impossible. Néanmoins, les Libyens que j'ai interviewé ont considéré Kadhafi plus que le leader purement symbolique de la Libye, et a estimé que la Libye était en fait plus proche d'une dictature qu'à une démocratie populaire. Cette thèse étudie les différences entre les réalités officielles et non officielles en Libye, en explorant le rôle de la société dans l'histoire du gouvernement du colonel Kadhafi. Mon analyse est focalisée par la question: «Quel est la rôle que les tribus jouaient dans la révolution de la Libye?" Je soutiens que les tribus ont fourni un système pour organiser conceptuellement la société de la Libye au cours du mandat du colonel Kadhafi. Cette organisation
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Adams, Ami Rhae. "Notes on a non-event: Y2K as social construction and its discontents." Thesis, The University of Arizona, 2001. http://hdl.handle.net/10150/291533.
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In the late 1990s, a 30-year-old decision by computer programmers was translated into "Y2K," a problem that threatened the technological and social infrastructure of contemporary Western society. This work examines that translation from the dominant perspective and juxtaposes it to the experiences of people who believed Y2K was real. In contrast to "mainstream" views that ultimately saw Y2K as a "non-event," these individuals constructed and experienced Y2K as an event with significant impact on their lives. In the dominant view, Y2K was understood through the lens of technology; when the technological failure markers that came to define Y2K in this construction did not materialize, Y2K became a non-event. For believers, who used a different set of markers, Y2K retained significance. This work demonstrates the importance of examining alternate perspectives on events, by showing that Y2K was only a non-event in its dominant construction.
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Nevin, Alice. "Rogue urban connections: an ethnography of trust and social relations in Observatory, Cape Town." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20109.
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It is important for present and future urban research to take into account the subtle dynamics and social relations at work in the city. There are alternative and beneficial forms of living together in the supposedly 'disordered' urban space, which are mobilised in order to function in a difficult, changing, and hopeful environment. It is especially pertinent to uncover the complex dynamics at work in everyday life in African cities, as they continue to undergo transformations. In the context of segregation, separation and uncertain futures people create and mobilise intricate ways of connecting to people and spaces in the city. In order to study the intricacies in a South African urban environment, this study examines how people use trust and distrust in a 'disorderly' urban space. I argue that beneficial social relations that are based on trust and distrust manifest in a liminal space, as is especially exemplified by 'strangers' in and of the environment (Simmel, [1908] 1971). Furthermore, I posit that there is a need to trust liminally and spatially in order to be able to function in an 'unruly', 'rogue' environment, specifically Observatory, Cape Town. This analysis focuses on five types of trust: personal, social, institutional, liminal, and spatial trust, and how they are mobilised in the suburb of Observatory, Cape Town. These forms of trust are paramount to functioning in a city, in which many people are unknown others with whom one needs to live alongside. In order to study this abstract concept, an endogenous anthropological methodology was used to observe how and why people use 'trust' in the 'unruly', liminal urban environment of Observatory. Ethnographic qualitative data-collection was vital to this project: namely participant-observation, interviews, open-ended discussions, and examination of what is said in popular media and discussion on the suburb. 'Walking' in the suburb provided a way to examine ethnographically how trust and distrust function on the everyday city streets. Furthermore, my positionality as a 'stranger' (Simmel, [1908] 1971) contributed positively in my study of liminality in Observatory, especially as an anthropological researcher. I conclude that there are beneficial forms and methods of trusting to be found in the liminal people, spaces, and situations in a city. Subtle and important forms of collectivity, agency, and autonomy are to be found in the 'disorder' of African cities.
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Bordini, Rafael Heitor. "Contribution to anthropological approach to the cultural adaptation of migrant agents." Thesis, University College London (University of London), 1999. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.314155.
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Qhobela, Tsoarelo Sylvia. "Social relations around a communal tap : an ethnography of conviviality in Imizamo Yethu, Cape Town." Master's thesis, University of Cape Town, 2014. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/12944.
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Includes bibliographical references.This dissertation is focused on the (re)configuration of social relations around a communal tap. It looks at the different ways in which fetching water from a communal tap brings life within an impoverished community in Cape Town, South Africa. I examine how the people of Imizamo Yethu who are located in a constrained and heavily populated geographical space, where movement and sociality are limited, take advantage of the tap space to (re)build relations through various social interactions. Water, one of the elements basic to human needs, activates hope in the midst of suffering, while stabilising residents’ uncertainties. During a four month ethnographic study of life within this community, I participated in and observed the daily practice of fetching water, and the interactions around one of the community’s taps. Building on the idea of water as a total social fact, and also conviviality as theoretical frame, I argue that water is as much a giver of life as it is a catalyst for social living. Water provides an opportunity for residents to meet, exchange stories, and seek survival strategies, further strengthening communal bonds. Through water and the social relations that it (re)configures, residents activate dignity.